2,000 demonstrate demanding action in children missing case

A group of locals gather under a banner called Nai Soch Samiti and chant slogans asking Chief Minister Narendra Modi to 'wake up'.

A group of around 2,000 residents of Millatnagar area staged a sit-in demonstration demanding "action" against the disappearance of two students who have allegedly gone missing from a nearby municipal school on January 3. The two are brothers.

The group gathered under a banner called Nai Soch Samiti and chanted slogans asking Chief Minister Narendra Modi to "wake up". The school falls under the Assembly constituency of Maninagar which is represented by Modi.

The handbills put up at the demonstration venue opposite in front of the school building read: "Narendra Modi, jago (wake up, Narendra Modi)."

According to school authorities, two brothers, Salman (9) and Arbaz (6), studying in grades four and one respectively, were not coming to school since January 1, but their parents insisted that the two have gone missing from the school on January 3.

On Monday, a group of unidentified people attacked the school building and vandalised its furniture, the school authorities said.

School Board Administrative Officer L D Desai said that it did not not lodge a police complaint in this connection. "We had called the staff today to the School Board office for ascertaining facts. According to them, a local antisocial person was instigating people to create trouble," Desai said. After examination of attendance records it was clear that the boys were not coming to school from January 1.

Isanpur Police Inspector R B Rana said that efforts to locate the children so far remained unsuccessful, but the police circulated photographs of the missing boys on Facebook, NGOs and all police stations in the city, child helplines.